The Cottager
by rollwithbutter
Summary: If this were a song, it would be a little ditty. Just a blip in Fili and Kili's lives, but maybe one that helped shape them into the two loyal and caring young Dwarves they grow into. A typical bungle leads the brothers to someone who could use a touch of the light that they carry. Multi-chapter, but by no means a novel.


**AN: Kili and Fili are the equivalent of**** eight and thirteen, respectively. I'm not getting into Dwarf math; it gives me headaches.**

**Disclaimer: Alas, not my toys. I stole them from the play yard.**

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The Cottager

The cottage and its occupant was Kili's discovery; he had only wanted the rabbit, but despite an injured hind leg, the flighty creature had escaped, disappearing into a hidden hole beneath a deep tangle of brush that, try as Kili might, he could not fit himself into.

"Kili, leave it!" Fili panted, jogging through the trees and addressing his brother's wriggling backside as Kili tried to cram himself down the rabbit hole after his quarry. Eight year-old Kili may have been narrow for a Dwarf, but even he stood no chance at making it further than his shoulders. "That coney's long gone," Fili wheezed, planting his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath. The rabbit may have been able to give Kili the slip, but Fili had found himself hard-pressed to keep up with the manic force of nature that was his brother on the chase.

There was a scuffle and a muffled reply from within the hole. Fili couldn't make out the words, but the tone was somewhere between aggravation and alarm. He grabbed Kili's ankles as the younger Dwarf struggled, obviously stuck.

"Quit kicking, you dunce!" Fili grunted, flinching as a shabbily booted heel hammered him in the side of the head. Fili gave the flailing limbs that protruded from the hole an exuberant wrench and Kili came free with an almost audible pop. Tumbling backward, head over heels, Fili landed on the flat of his back with a breathless "Whoomph!" as Kili sailed over him and through a rough looking patch of bushes. There was a sound of ripping fabric and a mild flourish of curses that Fili hadn't been aware his little brother even knew. Chuckling inwardly, Fili hoped their uncle wouldn't catch him at it. It would be Kili's last foray into adult language, if he ever did.

Fili climbed to his feet and brushed the dirt and leaves from the seat of his pants. "Kili? Are you alright?" he called into the bushes. The branches jiggled violently and Kili gasped from the other side.

"Briars!" he called back. "I _would_ land in a patch of briars," Kili groaned as Fili popped his head above the brambles to surveyed his fresh predicament.

Kili was lying on his back, one foot in the air and his coat pulled up over his head due to its being snagged in the thorny shrubbery. Tugging at his airborne leg, he was rewarded with another loud rip as the rough homespun material of his breeches gave way. He groaned again, picturing their mother's expression when she learned that he would be needing a new pair of britches. He was old enough now to understand that they were all living hand to mouth. Even an item as insignificant as a pair of pants would be a stretch to afford. He was struck by a wave of guilt.

Fili sauntered around the edge of the prickly thicket, looking a good deal less concerned than Kili thought polite. Smirking, he crouched down beside his brother, who was now grappling with his coat among the briars.

The tail of the garment had been hooked by several particularly wicked thorns, and Kili had retreated until the coat turned itself inside-out over his head, all except the arms, which were held out before him as he tugged as if he were a marionette on strings. Fili waited for him to stop struggling, then slipped him free, easily as releasing a fish from a line. Gratefully, Kili whipped his temporary shroud back in to place, exposing a shocking snarl of dark hair lined with twigs and feathered with leaves, like the nest of a deranged harpy.

He studied the rip in his pants and found that they might be mended, although it would be an imperfect repair; The rip started at the knee and continued straight down to the ankle, leaving the lower half of his leg exposed. His calf was covered with a good many dirty scratches and bright crimson drops welled up in dotted trails along the largest of these. Kili wiped at them with the hanging flap of his pants, bloodstains being the least of his concerns.

All in all, Fili was deeply impressed with Kili's level of disarray. The older Dwarf flicked a bit of twig from his shoulder and shook out his lion's mane of golden waves, feeling rather resplendent in comparison. Kili glared, perfectly able to delve the depths of his brother's shallow thoughts. "Don't go looking all smug. You've a horrible bedside manner, you know," he complained irritably.

"You're not in a bed, and there's nothing at all wrong with you, aside from a near-lethal level of clumsiness." Fili sniped, reaching down to pull Kili up off the ground. "Where are we?"

Freed of his coat and irritably brushing the hair from his eyes, Kili zeroed in on their surroundings, his intensely searching gaze bringing to Fili's mind a falconry raptor just released from its jesses and hood, although the hood in this case had been rather less dignified.

Kili's herbaceous snare had marked the end of the woods, and was only one of many brambly shrubs that ringed the large clearing in which the boys now found themselves. Closer inspection of the frosted, prickly stalks informed Fili that they were blackberries, past season. By the even spacing of the bushes, he could tell they had been planted by a careful hand, though they appeared not to have had any attention for quite some time; their branches had become too numerous for good berry production, and were in desperate need of pruning; they were reverting back to their wild habits.

The same could be said of the entire clearing. Neglect was the recurrent theme. Defiant saplings of oak and maple had sprung up, intent on reclaiming the land for the woods and once more hiding the ground from the sky beneath their leafy canopy. Whatever hand had cleared this plot would have been displeased to find them there.

Kili squinted down the far end of the overgrown glade. The whole of the clearing could not be seen from where they stood; there was a bend in the trees, and the open area continued to the left, dividing itself into two sections roughly the shape of an upside-down 'L.'

"I've never been here before," said Kili excitedly. "Have you?"

"No," Fili answered, peering around with as much interest as his brother. "This place is new to me as well."

Kili started toward the bend in the trees. He wanted to see the other side. Fili followed him, noting as he walked the unevenness of the ground. It rose and fell in little furrows and waves, and he realized that this had once been a garden plot of some sort. What Dwarves knew about gardening he could have written on the head of a pin, but he began to notice other details that supported his theory. Barely visible beneath an overgrowth of brush at the crook in the trees was a many-tined contraption attached to a moldering leather harness. Fili assumed that it had once had something to do with the creation of the furrows.

A scarecrow stood sentry near the plow, for that's what the many-tined contraption was, and the musty old fellow had a distinctly dejected air about him. His sodden head slumped tiredly to one side, burlap sacking rotten in many places and exposing moldy innards of straw. The cross-piece that made up the arms had shifted at some point in the scarecrow's life, and he now stood with one arm limp at his side and the other shot up straight in the air, either in question or salute. Fili thought it must be in question; a salute seemed too jaunty a gesture for such a forlorn figure. With a prickle of anxiety, he observed that the patchy, moth-eaten flannels it wore were Man-size, not Dwarf.

Rounding the corner, Kili stopped short. Fili, still distrustfully eyeing the scarecrow, almost bowled him over as he collided with his back, earning a dirty look from Kili as he stumbled.

They had come upon the dregs of what had once been a stout little cottage. It was sturdily built of post and beam, and covered over with shingle. There was a time when the cottage had likely been quite cozy, but that ship had long since sailed. What was left now were the bones of a good structure clothed in a molting skin of neglect.

The large chimney at one end had all but caved into itself, and the ground around it was littered with crumbled field stone. The roof was straight, although missing the greater portion of its shingles. Kili thought the rain must fall as easily inside as it did out. Windows were cracked and boarded, plaster was crumbling, and ivy had insinuated its cunning fingers into every crevice and cranny, aiding time in its unrelenting, destructive campaign. At this time even calling the cottage a shelter would have been gracious.

"Well, that place has seen better days," Fili observed.

Kili nodded thoughtfully, unusually somber. "D'you think anyone lives there?" he asked.

Fili looked the cottage over. From where he stood, it seemed unlikely. The day was not cold, being the tail end of summer, but the air was damp and heavy, and a place like that would retain moisture in a most uncomfortable way. No smoke drifted from the decrepit chimney, and no doors or windows had been thrown open to let in the refreshment of the little breeze that whisked through the clearing. "I doubt it," he mused. "If anyone does, they must be away."

"Should we go look?" Kili pressed hopefully. He was chomping at the bit to investigate. If someone _did_ live there, perhaps he would find in them a new friend.

Fili shrugged. "Why not?"

They started toward the dwelling; Kili in darting, furtive movements, perhaps pretending that he approached some enemy stronghold, while Fili ambled unconcernedly after him. Fili's nonchalance was not long-lived; a loud crash from within the cottage sent both boys squealing and scurrying for cover in an undignified retreat.

"You said no one lived there!" Kili exclaimed, panting the accusation from behind an unkempt laurel hedge.

"I said I doubted it!" Fili hissed. He was currently flattened against the trunk of a sizable oak, peering anxiously around its base. A movement in one cracked windowpane caught his eye; a slight twitch of a moldering panel of lace, the remnant of an old curtain. Someone was watching them from inside.

"Why don't they come out?" Kili asked when after a few minutes no one had set dogs on them or attacked. "D'you think they're scared of us?"

"That hut was built for someone of the race of Men, look at the size of the door. If there's someone in there, then they're bound to be big. They wouldn't be scared of us." _Especially not with Kili barely out of the nursery_, Fili thought, but did not say.

Kili disagreed. "Then why don't they show themselves? If I were a great Man, and someone were on my land, I would chase them out! What if whoever is inside is sick, or hurt?"

Fili shook his head. Thorin would be angry if they meddled further. They had been warned to stay clear of Men unless accompanied by older, more seasoned Dwarves. "Doesn't matter, it's none of our affair. Let's go," he said, already slipping sideways into the trees.

Kili hesitated. He sensed fear from within, and he trusted his instincts. He was only a short sprint from the bare dirt of the shabby little dooryard. Grabbing a thick, fallen branch from the ground, he darted toward the front of the dark hut. Fili shouted angrily from the woods.

Reaching into his pocket, Kili pulled out an apple. He slowed as he neared the flagstones that led to the door. He placed the apple on a prominent stone, then turned and knelt in the dirt, back to the cottage, his actions hidden from view of the wary watcher inside. His earnest brow furrowed in concentration as he scrabbled in the dirt, tongue peeping comically from the corner of his mouth. There was certainly nothing about the young Dwarf that could have been construed as alarming. Kili finished his chore and stood. Dusting off his knees, he glanced back over his shoulder with a tentative smile. When the door was still not opened, he gave up and trotted over to where his brother waited, fuming.

Their childish bickering carried them through the woods until the sound was finally snuffed out by distance. Birds flitted back into the clearing, relieved to have the forgotten fields to themselves once more. The mottled lace twitched in the window; a rheumy eye blinked behind it.

An hour went by and the birds maintained their chorus undisturbed, blithely chattering and warbling in the late summer haze. The cottage door creaked open, protesting shrilly on aged hinges, and a lone figure tottered out onto the step, blinking in the golden glow of the evening sun. The ancient resident of the tumbledown cottage turned a face like worn parchment on Kili's handiwork. She shuffled closer, at first unable to make out the markings etched in the dirt. Squinting through murky eyes adrift in a sea of wrinkles, she brought the apple on the stone into focus, and saw written beside it in wobbling, uncertain letters a name;

_K_I_L_I.

Wavering unsteadily on her feet, she pondered the meaning of this riddle. After a time, she chuckled, or meant to, though what came out was a rasping cackle that, were it not for the sad kindness in her eyes, would have combined with the ramshackle cottage and her overall appearance to cement her in her resemblance to a fairytale witch.

She glanced at the sky, which was edging on a deep, beaming scarlet. Still cackling with unaccustomed mirth, the old woman stooped in the dust and took up Kili's simple gift. A series of arthritic percussions came from from her knees as she fumbled for the writing stick lying abandoned at her feet. She struggled with stiff fingers to add her own rickety footnote to Kili's message. The sky had told her it would be alright; there would be no rain tonight; the message would still be clear come morning.

_Red sky at night, sailor's delight,_

she thought.

_Red sky in morning, sailor's warning_.

If the little ones came again, the smaller, darker little scamp would be sure to see her reply. There was some moxie to that one.

She struggled up, swollen joints emitting another volley of pops and groans. _I will have to mash this_, she thought, gazing at the apple in her hand, longing to bite into it with the ghosts of teeth she no longer possessed. She teetered back through the dark doorway of the little house and shut the door on the sun.

Outside, in the dirt, the message now read:

_K _I _L _I

then;

_IMELDA_

_WELCOME_


End file.
